Gaslighting is a thing in many workplaces. It’s such an easy way to manage people, especially if you have no respect for them and want to make sure they understand that they’re a dime a dozen and can easily be replaced in a heartbeat.
So, it goes without saying – but I’ll say it anyhow, that in education, gaslighting is rampant. No wonder so many teachers leave the profession after just a few years or stay but eventually go out on medical leaves and/ or take meds for depression, PTSD, anxiety, high blood pressure.
I’m retired a while now but still working my way through some stuff. Like many of my colleagues, some of my school experiences did a job on my psyche and affected me in ways I’m still discovering. The triggers are everywhere. For me, gaslighting is one of those.
Here are some experiences, mostly generalized, that have affected me and many of my friends. I wanted to write this for myself just to get some things off my chest. But also, there are folks out there who have absolutely no respect for the profession. Maybe if you read this, it will open your eyes a little to some of the many things teachers are up against. And to any of my teacher friends who read this and can relate, I’m thinking of you always.
Admin: If you have any questions, just email me.
Reality: After sending multiple follow-up emails: Crickets. Nothing but crickets. Common in all professions of course, but when it comes to dealing with follow ups on out-of-control students and safety issues, email responses are vital. To those who say, “Why email? Go immediately and talk to so-and -so.” Yes, of course. But an email trail is important not only for documentation of the student issue, but for covering your butt too. I know teachers who have lost their jobs because issues came down to admin said teacher said kinds of things. And the teachers always lose. It’s disgusting but it’s reality.
Admin: We are here to support teachers.
Reality: Here’s a reworking of one teacher’s life one year. Admin: “Ah, so you’re busy helping your seriously ill, elderly parents all those hours after school every day and are finding it hard to manage things? Why don’t you learn to multitask? Bring your plan book or papers for correcting with you to their doctor appointments so you can work while you’re in the waiting room with them.”
Reality: Admin: “So you say that this one student is causing all these problems and you say you can’t manage the classroom until this student gets some sort of additional support, like an instructional assistant? Maybe the problem is you. Maybe you need to try harder.”
Teacher/s (with more time in classroom than admin will ever have) go/es out on medical leave due to blood pressure issues.
Replacement teacher – brand new and just starting her professional career, gets no support whatsoever, and is fired within weeks of hire for not being able to control class, an unfair experience that will absolutely affect her for many, many years to come.
Finally, after months of day-to-day subs each of whom refuse to return to that classroom, and some who walk out, refusing to stay the whole day, the student gets needed support, and with the school year more than half gone, the classroom finally gets its third and final teacher.
Reality: Veteran teacher with mobility disability has classroom moved from first to fourth floor in building with constantly broken elevator. Nearest bathroom is on third floor.
Admin: Cell phones are not allowed in classrooms. Simply follow protocol. Protocol, which takes a good chunk of teacher’s planning period: If students don’t put their phones away, contact x, then if that doesn’t work y, then if that doesn’t work z, and finally admin. Admin will handle it. Follow the process and everything will be fine.
Reality: Teacher jumps through hoops and follows all the steps then gets to admin. Admin does nothing.
Reality: At faculty meeting, admin blames teachers. Because faculty hasn’t focused on building relationships with students, students feel they don’t need to do what they are told, which is why they don’t put their phones away. Then, while next meeting presenter is talking, admin whips out phone and shows pics of family vacation to admin/ office/ teacher friends instead of listening to presenter.
System bases teacher evaluations and classroom planning around useless testing programs like Fountas and Pinnell, MCAS, MAPs.
Reality: For years and years, teachers push back, saying that the program is a giant waste of time and money, is faulty, and its data can be easily manipulated.
Reality: Some teachers receive poor evaluations and/or lose their jobs because their students aren’t meeting data expectations.
Reality: Teachers and students lose twenty-plus classroom hours every quarter due to testing.
Reality: Teachers are beyond stressed because testing is everything.
Reality: After decades, school system suddenly and mysteriously drops that particular testing - FP for example, because –surprising no teacher anywhere, it is determined by someone somewhere that the testing is useless.
.
No cigarettes, drugs, or alcohol allowed on school property.
Reality: Teacher/s yelled at by admin – yup, public humiliation of teachers is a thing in some schools, for confronting student about vaping in bathrooms, hallways, etc. No consequences for the student.
Reality: Email sent to staff telling teachers to ignore various student odors and allow students to sleep in class.
No weapons allowed on school property/ Schools are safe
Reality: Unless and until school systems implement airport-like security protocols, there will always be weapons or the possibility of weapons in schools.
Witnessed parent with gun in waistband of pants in school hallway (might have been an undercover cop but never found out for sure and I’m pretty sure shouldn’t have had the weapon anyhow).
Had to divert my dismissal line as one man holding a gun chased another down the alley next to our school (school property).
Witnessed a teen kid– not from my school -- in parking lot across from school, where we teachers often parked our cars, showing a pack of kids his weapon.
One year a student brought a BB gun to shoot me. Thankfully, another student reported it.
My car - and other teacher cars paintballed, while parked on school property.
Front bumper crushed, a hit and run on school property where staff, parents, and often time school neighbors park.
License plate stolen.
Last year, had my jacket stolen from my classroom.
My experiences aren’t unusual either. Lots of teachers have lots of stories. Students too.
Reality: Though many teachers and admin object, school committee changes policy to allow students to carry backpacks while in school. Some kids report they don’t like the new rule because they are worried that some kids are carrying weapons in their backpacks. Teachers’ typical lunchtime discussion:: “Of course, the kids are carrying weapons, drugs, alcohol in their packs. But even if they didn’t carry their packs, kids would find a way to get illicit things into school. So, if the stuff is going to come in anyhow, why bother banning backpacks?”
Reality: Schools are as safe as that one random kid who helpfully lets a stranger through one of the many many outside doors in her school. One of my schools had 16 doors, all alarmed by the early 2000s, but still. . .all it takes is that one helpful kid.
Reality: Schools are as safe as that one kid who risks all to tell someone in authority that xyz has a weapon in his/her backpack.
No school personnel should have to tolerate verbal or physical abuse.
Reality: Admins have so much else on their plate, that reporting verbal abuse almost always gets ignored or gets at most a two-minute meeting with student. Or gets a phone call home, which is a waste of oxygen nine times out of ten.
Fun reality: Admins sometime blame teachers for the student verbal abuse: “What were YOU doing that prompted the student to call you that.”
Reality: Things I have been called – in many different languages so I’m somewhat multilingual now, include bitch, old cow, fucking bitch, whore, old whore.
Reality: It’s the teacher’s word against the student’s word. Threats get consequences - if the student admits to it and/or there’s another witness besides the teacher/ victim.
Reality: Physical abuse of staff gets addressed - if witnessed by someone. Usually.
Reality: One case – circumstances changed to protect those involved – staff injured while breaking up fight. Student bragged to others that they’d injured school staff. Student denied it in official meeting. The videotape – camera in all halls and stairways is pretty much the norm now in lots of school systems, didn’t clearly show the part of the fight where student allegedly punched and injured staff. Result: Student walks away, exonerated.
How does the staff member cope in a situation like that? The staff member either leaves the school, the system, or the profession, or retires early, perhaps on disability – only 40 percent, which is tough to prove if that disability is due to something “invisible,” like school-related PTSD. Or the staff member finds some other way to deal with the fact that a kid beat them up and nobody did anything about it.
If, like me and many of my friends, you’re “lucky” enough to only start experiencing some of these gaslighting techniques as you approach the end of your career, one good coping mechanism is to focus on the big picture. You take things one day at a time. Keep your eyes on the prize: that retirement chart that tells you that soon, very soon, you’re done, and you’ll never have to think about any of this again.
But here’s the thing. Once you’re retired, sometimes you still do.
